PreColumbian Archaeology of North America

1
Pre-Columbian Archaeology of North America

• Regional Chronologies
• Week 8 the Southwest

2
General Characteristics

• Three major ecozones and culture regions
• Key factors are rainfall, temperature, number of
  frost free days, farmland availability, water
  sources, floodwater.
• Plant categories wild and domesticated.
  Domesticated plants appear in the SW by 3500 BP.
• Domesticated are genetically altered and
  dependent, to some extent, on human propagation.
• Cultivated are the same genetically as wild,
  tough planted and cared for by humans.
• Agave.
• Hohokam Region Sonoran Desert
• advantage- lush desert with wild food plants year
  around
• spring wild barley, agave (Yucca mohavensis),
  cholla (Opuntia sp.) buds
• summer saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) fruits
• fall and winter mesquite (Prosopis juliflora),
  acorns, prickly pear (Opuntia).
• Cultigens are agave.
• Farming of corn, various beans, squash, gourds,
  supported by large-scale irrigation on flood
  plains.
• Fauna of rabbits and fish, small game.
• Mogollon Region
• Mountainous regions (max. elevation 3500 m)
• Forests rich in plants but not in human foods
• Diverse wild resources are cacti, mesquite, piñon
  (e.g. Pinus ediuls), mesquite, acorns, but not
  abundant.
• Farming of small patches of arable land by
  rainfall and floodwater farming.

3
(No Transcript)
4
(No Transcript)
5
Fauna

• Herbivores
• Mule Deer
• Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canidensis) ovce tlustorohá
• Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) zajíc tmavoocasý
• rodents
• Carnivores
• Mountain lions, wolves, coyotes
• Raccoons, skunks, badger
• Kit fox, gray fox
• Birds
• Eagles, hawks, owls, raven krkavec, quail
  krepelka, roadrunner kukacka kalifornská
• Reptiles
• Rattlesnakes, tortoises, lizards

6
(No Transcript)
7
Southwest (1)

• Archaic Period
• 8,000 - 1,800 BP.
• Altitherm was 7,000 - 4,500 BP.
• More regionalism of cultures with diverse
  projectile point traditions, side-notched,
  corner-notched, and barbed points, evidence
  varying hunting strategies.
• Broad spectrum adaptation to small game and plant
  resources, especially rabbits and seeds.
• Technology includes digging sticks, serrated
  stone, ground stones, manos and metates, storage
  baskets.
• Yields fruit 3k - 9k cal/hr, nuts 1k - 2k cal/hr,
  seeds 200 - 600 cal/hr.
• Tome and space scheduling requires intense
  knowledge of landscape.
• Residential and logistical mobility.
• Early domestication of plants evidence in SW
• Tornillo 3225 BP, Mogollon Desert in SW NM
• Bat Cave 3441 BP, West NM
• Three Fir Shelter 3040 BP, Colorado Plateau
• Milagro 2780 BP, Sonoran Desert near Tucson
  associated with pithouses. Early domesticates
  spread quickly.
• Late Archaic (1500 - 200 BC) had corn, gourds and
  squash, associated with pithouses.
• Earliest sedentary farmers are in the Sonoran
  Desert.
• Slow change to sedentism is attributed to
  cultural evolution and genetic evolution.
• Later development divided into three distinct
  culture regions
• Anasazi

8
Southwest (2)

• Basketmaker II
• 2200 - 1500 BP
• Most models that attempt to explain the cultural
  innovations of BMII assume in situ adoption of
  agriculture by late Archaic populations.
• Many lines of evidence show BMII dependence on
  corn agriculture
• Burned and unburned corn recovered from trash
  middens, storage pits, burials
• Corn found in dessicated human feces (coprolites)
• Locations of BMII sites (unlike Archaic sites)
  often in areas of good, deep soils or near washes
  where cultivation could have taken place
• Carbon isotope ratios of BMII human bones are
  different from these ratios in the bones of
  Archaic populations, in a way that indicates a
  BMII diet rich in corn.
• Pithouses associated with residential seasonal
  mobility, multi-year use.
• Wide variability, including large, deep forms and
  shallow, basin-shaped forms.
• Foundations are made of a wide variety of
  materials, cribbed logs and rock. Walls are not
  often preserved, but these were made of poles and
  brush, jacal, and stacked logs.
• BMII pithouses are circular to oval in shape,
  with entryways facing to the south or east.
  Firepits are often in the center of the house.
• Some houses were placed in rock shelters, but
  most were constructed out in the open.
• Subterranean storage cists (for corn, piñon nuts,
  and other foods), often lined with slabs, but
  sometimes simply dug below the ground in the
  shape of a jug or bell.
• Generally speaking, no ceramics
• Atlatl and throwing spear (dart), no
  bow-and-arrow. (The atlatl/throwing spear
  combination was also found in the Archaic, in
  BMIII, and in later Pueblo times, but in BMII it
  was the main form of weapon/hunting tool).
• Multi-year middens, more burials than during
  Archaic

9
Southwest (3)

• Basketmaker III
• 1500 - 1200 BP
• BMIII is a continuation and elaboration of the
  BMII adaptation. During BMIII, there appear a
  number of cultural innovations, but many of the
  ways of BMII also continue.
• There is good evidence that population has
  increased by BMIII, and that villages have become
  larger. There are many more BMIII sites than BMII
  sites, and they are spread over a wider area.
• At some BMIII sites, one or a few exceptionally
  large pit structures are found. These are
  interpreted as some form of communal gathering
  place, perhaps the earliest expression of a great
  kiva.
• These structures suggest that BMIII societies
  were socially integrated at a level not seen in
  BMII, i.e., there was some form of intra- or even
  inter-village cooperation regarding important
  decisions and ceremonies.
• Beans and pottery
• Beans (lysine) complete protein. Pottery used
  to cook beans maximized caloric return.
• Pottery less mobility
• Turkeys being raised for meat and feathers
• Bow and arrow, smaller points indicate new
  adaptations.
• More storage pits and cists
• Pithouses more substantial and great kivas
  appear.
• Many BMIII pithouses have large alcoves or
  vestibules raised ridges in the floor dividing
  the house into sections slabs lining the walls
  of the pithouse and a large hearth in the center
  of the pithouse.

10
Southwest (4)

• Comparing BMIII sites
• Shabikeshchee had a communal economy
• Dendrochronology construction begins c. 1450
  BP, continuing to c. 1200 BP
• 70 small, standardized pit houses with small
  antechambers suitable for two persons
• 47 cists, few storage pits in houses
• large subterranean circular structure great
  kiva
• storage and caching visible to community
• burials outside pithouses.
• Maximum population may have been as high as 77
  people (avg. for BMIII is 15)
• The SU site had a household based economy
• 35 large, variably sized, larger antechambered
  pit houses
• one large pithouse
• storage inside homes and less visible
• diverse burials.

11
Southwest (5)

• Pueblo I (PI-III Anasazi)
• 1300 - 1100 BP
• The transition from BMIII to PI is not abrupt,
  nor does it involve an influx of new people
• Changes from BMIII to PI are thus gradual and
  evolutionary, though when we compare overall
  trends from the two time periods, many
  differences can be seen.
• Cranial deformation associated with the
  introduction of a new type of cradle board
• Year round occupation in pueblos with above
  ground rooms, some pit houses, pit structures
  have some ritual features
• Typical site a double row of rooms fronted by pit
  structures
• Winter use of pits. Structures are warm and cold
  adapted.
• Living rooms have storage rooms attached.
• Toward the end of PI, the above-ground
  architectural form shifts from insubstantial
  jacal structures to rectangular masonry rooms.
  These are often arranged end-to-end in "blocks"
  of rooms. There is evidence (hearths and other
  floor features, as well as artifacts found on the
  floors) that such room blocks were used for a
  combination of habitation, storage, and special
  activities such as food preparation and
  manufacture of crafts.
• Household based economies and less sharing.
• Field houses indicate claim to land areas.
• Plant remains support continuous, year round
  occupation.
• First corrugated and black-on-white pottery
  appears (probably by about 1200 BP), along with
  black-on-red styles
• There is evolution of designs from the crude an
  sparse designs of BMIII pottery (which often
  resemble the designs woven into BMIII baskets),
  to more elaborate and widely distributed styles
  of painted decoration which do not match basketry
  designs
• clearly pottery has emerged by PI as an important
  medium for new symbolic expressions
• The corrugated pottery usually consists of thick
  corrugations confined to the neck of the pot.

12
Southwest (6)

• In a few places, large villages arise during PI,
  which exceed the size of the largest BMIII
  villages and reflect different and probably more
  complex forms of social organization.
• Many of these villages involve multiple units of
  linear, arc-shaped, or U-shaped rows of masonry
  rooms, with doorways facing an open area
  containing one or more kivas.
• In the larger villages, there are one or a few
  exceptionally large, circular structures that can
  be considered as great kivas.
• In some cases, it appears that these great kivas
  did not have roofs, and were large, open-air
  gathering places.
• McPhee village
• 21 room blocks and a remote kiva.
• 1200 BP 2 great kivas 22.5 m in diameter.
• 1160-1100 BP oversized pit structures - 5 m -
  central in room blocks with elaborate sipapus and
  footdrums.
• Circa 1100 BP abandonment with pit structures
  burned, burying bodies in the floor.
• Grand Mesa Village
• 40 households (120 people) lived there at the
  peak of occupation
• Evidence of other, larger villages in the area
• Because of the limited amount of non-agricultural
  food resources in these areas, some have proposed
  that large villages formed during climatic
  conditions that fostered consecutive years of
  adequate agricultural production.
• The dendroclimatic evidence (evidence of yearly
  rainfall values based on tree rings) did not
  indicate that such aggregations took place during
  years that might have produced agricultural
  surplus.
• Instead, it appears that aggregations took place
  during times when there were no severe droughts
  that would have forced people to disperse and
  move to more favorable agricultural locations.
• The abandonment of these PI villages does seem to
  have been correlated with periods of drought,
  implying that the social organizations that were
  formed during the good times (agriculturally
  speaking) were relatively fragile, and the social
  bonds were relatively easily broken.
• As with the BMIII villages, there is no good
  evidence for "elite" leaders with substantial
  political power
• Again, in spite of the fact that there were
  intra- or inter-village ceremonial organizations
  (reflected in the great kivas), the religious and
  political power may have been dispersed among a
  number of individuals and households, and social
  organization was relatively egalitarian.
• There is much evidence that the room blocks
  surrounding the kivas were used for "potluck"
  feasting, wherein large quantities of food were
  prepared and eaten on a periodic basis.

13
Southwest (7)

• Pueblo II
• 1100 - 900 BP (900-1100 AD).
• Dominated by Chaco Canyon.
• First large scale stone ruins in the US.
• Chaco Era 850 - 1150.
• Chaco sequence begins around 850 at confluence of
  drainages with good access to water and
  agriculture sites.
• 1000 - 1100 major population growth, Chaco
  considered a major regional center by 1050.
• 1075 - 1115 major construction peak.
• 1088-1092 Beams brought from 50 miles distance.
• 1100's experience environmental changes.
• 1130 - 1180 was a period of reduced rainfall.
• Around 1140 to 1150 Chaco became depopulated.
  Aztec Ruin takes place of Chaco.
• Chaco population estimated at 1500 - 5000.
• Given room with hearth is a habitation six
  people, therefore 1500 - 2000 people.
• Given a room suite six people 1500 - 2000
• With Pueblo Bonito at only 150 residents.
• Lots of non-habitation architecture, with a chain
  of storage rooms at Pueblo Bonito, and rooms deep
  within structure.
• Pottery
• Further elaboration of black-on-white,
  black-on-red, and gray ware pottery.

14
Southwest (8)

• Architecture
• Room average is 44 tons of sandstone,
• 50 million pieces in Chetro Ketl.
• To construct all the great houses 200,000 trees
  were used.
• Pueblo Bonito had 4-5 stories and 600 or more
  rooms.
• Over engineering meant easy upkeep, inference of
  cultural importance.
• Estimate of a stage of construction was 30 people
  x 2 - 4 months a year for 10 years. Great houses
  built in stages.
• Chaco kivas can be above ground and surrounded by
  rectangular walls.
• Great kivas are 15 - 20 meters in diameter. Casa
  Rinconada 63 feet.
• Pueblo Alto is one story 85 rooms with a big
  plaza.
• 1020 - 1060 construction, maintained until 1100.
• Big room suites are not heavily worn and have a
  kiva.
• Trash midden is 2400 m3 with 150,000 pots,
  evidencing feasting.
• Status is evidenced at Chaco.
• A few burials are very rich, elaborate and early
  in the sequence.
• Little evidence of private wealth and residential
  evidence is of equality.
• Chaco health is better than at small sites.
• Acquired status likelier than stratification of
  the society.
• The Chaco System

15
Southwest (9)

• Organization.
• Chaco Canyon is seen as a center for the regional
  system.
• The number of storage rooms may have been for
  redistribution purposes.
• The sites with outlier great houses are seen as
  part of the regional system. These populations
  utilized the canyon sites for gatherings.
• The center may also have served as a trade
  center. Roads often connected the sites.
• The region was tied together around Chaco Canyon.
  With Chaco Canyon acting as a ritual center and
  trade center.
• The low number of residents in Chaco Canyon would
  indicate that the visitors to the canyon came
  from the outliers.
• Social organization during PII is not well
  understood particularly with respect to the Chaco
  system.
• Was Chaco a mighty empire with the ability to
  coerce and control outlying populations, or was
  it a great religious and ceremonial system that
  was a place of pilgrimage?
• The debate has convincing arguments on both
  sides.
• David Wilcox has argued in various publications
  that the Chacoans were able to send out
  relatively small but well-trained and fearsome
  groups of armed men to control outlying
  populations and demand "tribute" (gifts of food
  and other valuable items) for consumption or use
  by elites living in the Canyon Great Houses and
  in the outlying Great Houses.
• Others (Steve Lekson, John Stein) have argued
  that Chaco may have been a great
  ceremonial/religious center, where pilgrims came
  to participate in feasting and ceremonies. It is
  interesting to note that some of the features of
  Chaco Canyon (arc-shaped room blocks, great
  kivas, evidence for mass consumption of food)
  were also present in PI sites (see above).
• Was the Chaco system then the driving
  intellectual, philosophical, and religious force
  of the 900s through early 1100s, or did it merely
  reflect and reinforce ancient concepts and
  principles of the Anasazi?

16
Southwest (10)

• Pueblo III
• 1100 - 1300 AD
• Mesa Verde (4-Corners, San Juan) Region.
• 1888 Richard Wetherill finds Cliff Palace, 200
  rooms, 8 kivas and 8 levels, turkey pens
• Mesa Verde had largest aggregation in SW after
  1150.
• Mesa Verde Sequence Mesa top habitation on
  Chapin and Wetherill Mesas.
• 36 sites with 200 - 400 people AD 1000 - 1200.
• Tower construction.
• Mummy Lake Reservoir held 500,000 gallons.
• 1200 AD shift to canyon occupation with greater
  aggregations.
• Fewkes Canyon had 33 sites with 530 rooms, 600 -
  800 people
• Sun Temple, Cliff Palace and Spruce Tree House
  built.
• Sun Temple has bi-walled construction.
• Montezuma Valley
• 10,000 - 30,000 people doing Mesa Top dryland
  farming.
• 1000 - 1150 population dispersed.
• 1200 population aggregated into 8 towns, some
  with history and some new.
• Important communities established by 1000 with
  community stability and mobile people.
• Pre-1150 household occupations 15 - 25 years

17
Southwest (11)

• Sand Canyon Pueblo 1250 - 1280, canyon rim site,
  
• east side residential and west side with kivas,
  unit pueblos, low encircling wall, use of
  boundary marking stones.
• Mesa Verde Region Abandonment Process.
• 10,000 - 30,000 people leave the region
• People moved to the Rio Grande and Little
  Colorado River areas.
• By 1200 more concentration into central Mesa
  Verde region with abandonment of small sites as
  people aggregated in towns.
• At Sand Canyon orderly abandonment evidenced.
• Units of movement parallel unit construction.
• Trash filled units indicate process over several
  years.
• Some units burned with contents, kivas burned.
• Abandonment causes.
• Migration is a normal event for SW populations.
• Great Drought from 1276 - 1299.
• 1275 tree ring dates, complete abandonment by
  1300.
• Not the first drought event in the SW.
• Carrying capacity of the land.
• People were in circumscribed areas.
• No evidence of invading outsiders.
• Evidence of intra-regional conflict with some
  people getting killed at some sites.

18
Southwest (12)

• Pueblo IV
• Post-1300 AD
• Pan SW processes and styles.
• Hohokam (see below) and Pueblo distinction is
  blurred.
• Larger sites and clusters of sites with open
  regions between clusters.
• Plazas incorporated into pueblos with fewer
  kivas.
• Pueblo III had six rooms per kiva, Pueblo IV has
  501 ratio and end of unit pueblos.
• Cotton is grown as a commodity.
• Conflict is evidenced.
• West pueblos are matrilineal descent groups with
  ritual societies that cross-cut descent groups,
  absence of architectural boundaries.
• Katsina iconography (Fourmile Style) appears.
• Southwest regional iconography on pottery, rock
  art and kiva murals flowers, butterflies,
  serpents, parrots, masks.
• Homol'ovi pueblos
• Little Colorado River near Winslow.
• 1276 river entrenched freeing 5,000 ha of
  terraces.
• In migration, no katsinas, cotton growing, little
  local pottery
• Homol'ovi III linear constructions
• 40 rooms, 2 rectangular kivas, sandstone/adobe,
• Tusayan pottery.

19
Southwest (13)

• Mogollon
• Distinguishing features include coiled and
  scraped pottery.
• Round, then square, pithouses with ramp entry.
• Ceremonial structures lack sipapus.
• Mogollon Sequence
• Early Pithouse 200 - 550 AD.
• High ground, lots of wild foods.
• Pottery brown, then red slip, then painted.
• Late Pithouse 550 - 1000 AD.
• Large sites near flood plains, more farming.
• Pottery white slip, eventually B/W.
• Classic 1000 - 1130/50 AD. pueblos and
  irrigation.
• Pottery elaborate B/W, naturalistic and abstract
  designs.
• Classic Period was one of intensive farming of
  corn, beans and squash, water control features,
  bordered fields with ditches and terracess, low
  tech and labor intensive.
• Mimbres area in 1100 AD had lots of riparian
  species and mesquite, and by 1150 mostly bushy
  plants. Trees had been cut.
• Villages of 50 - 200 rooms and field houses.
  Continuous occupation for hundreds of years.
• Clusters of rooms gradually expanded as
  population grows. Environmental degradation
  corresponds to growth.
• Organization no apparent plan to villages, no
  hierarchy evidence, homoeneous architecture,
  rules of painting pottery.
• By 1150 the villages had been abandoned. Movement
  is an important aspect of desert adaptation.
  Residential stability results in local
  environment degradation. Non-sustainable.

20
Southwest (14)

• Comparison and contrast of the Mimbres Classic
  and Postclassic occupations.
• Pottery Classic 1000-1150, elaborate black on
  white, naturalistic and abstract pattern,
  homogeneous style with apparent rules of
  painting. Iconographic conventions include many
  rabbits, sheep, copulation, unusual animals,
  humans, masks, mesoamerican themes and plumed
  serpents.
• Postclassic 1150 -1250, Classic Mimbres pots in
  use in Postclassic. Mimbres iconography
  discontinued. New technology added to plainware.
  A diverse variety of pottery types associated
  with different areas of the Southwest at
  Postclassic hamlets. Classic Mimbres iconography
  is continued after 1150. Reserve-Tularosa
  technological style imported.
• Interpretation of the evidence Ideology of
  conformity during the Classic.
• New technology indicates influx of some new
  people.
• Regional interaction increased post 1150 with
  greater social interaction and movement of
  people.
• Settlement patterns
• Interpretation of the evidence
• Classic clustering of rooms indicates gradual
  expansion of population. no evidence of
  hierarchy, residential stability, residential
  stability was a non-sustainable subsistence
  pattern.
• Postclassic remodeling of field houses indicates
  continuity, Flat radiocarbon date indicate
  continuity.
• Agricultural practices
• Classic irrigation systems were in use, water
  control features, bordered fields with ditched
  and terraces, low tech and labor intensive,
  intense farming of corn and beans.
• Postclassic All hearths had cultigens, change
  from large scale irrigation systems to dispersed.
  Interpretation of the evidence There was a
  degradation of the environment from long and
  continuous use. Cultigen evidence indicates same
  manner of subsistence, with change in areas
  farmed.
• General interpretation Mimbres classical
  abandonment was actually a reorganization.
  Community and regional relations were redefined
  at a broader and less restrictive level.
• Mimbres Classic period was marked by aggregated
  villages with several hundred inhabitants.
• Postclassic saw population disbursement to small
  hamlets.
• A breakdown in social structure, and land
  degradation could be reasons for abandonment of
  Classic villages.
• Classic period pottery has distinct and
  ubiquitous iconography.
• Iconography does not appear in Postclassic
  contexts.

21
Southwest (15)

• Discussion Ways in which the focus, or scale of
  observation, affect our understanding of
  prehistoric abandonmenst with reference to the
  Mimbres and Mesa Verde abandonments.
• Focusing only on a small area may give the
  impression that a region has been abandoned. The
  Mimbres valley may have been abandoned, but the
  Mimbres region evidences continuity of
  occupation.
• In this case a regional view is adequate to
  assess what really occurred.
• In the case of the Mesa Verde abandonment a much
  wider view is needed. The Mesa Verde populations
  did abandon the region and moved to the Rio
  Grande Valley, a movement of greater distance
  than the Mimbres.
• The Mesa Verde movement can be called an
  abandonment, the Mimbres is best viewed as a
  regional reorganization. A camera viewfinder is
  an excellent analogy because a number of push and
  pull factors may lead a population away from an
  area that they had historically occupied. In the
  camera example, a narrow focus of the camera
  would indicate that the area was abandoned and
  the inhabitants disappeared, when in fact they
  had just moved out of the view of the camera. In
  the case of the Mimbres, the population did not
  abandon the region, signaling the end of the
  Mimbres culture. Rather they disbursed to smaller
  hamlets to the east. If we do not expand our
  scale of observation it would be easy to assume
  that they had disappeared. The scale of
  observation needs to be larger for the Mesa Verde
  region. Its inhabitants moved all the way to the
  Rio Grande Valley 200 miles distant.
• The following commentary on this document
  regarding the Mimbres material was provided by
  Dr. Harry J. Shafer of the Department of
  Anthropology at Texas AM University
• Mimbre architecture There are at least six
  different functional types of rooms, and the
  occurrence of these functional types depends on
  the size of the social group, and whether it is
  an extended family or corporate group.  Features
  in rooms and the way they articulate with other
  rooms defines the room type.  There is a great
  deal of variability in the use of building
  materials, depending on the location relative to
  the kind of available stone, and when the room
  was constructed. Great kivas during the
  pithouse-pueblo transition (A.D. 900-1000) had
  sipapus, and Classic corporate kivas had
  rectangular floor vaults placed next to the
  hearth.
• Mimbres mortuary practices  Intramural burials,
  which account for 85 of all Classic period
  burials, were lineage cemteries placed beneath
  certain types of rooms.  Extramural burials
  included inhumations (10) and cremations (5).
• Mimbres pottery Style III painted pottery ceased
  to be produced probably before A.D.1150.  
  Arguments for continued use after 1150, are based
  on radiocarbon dates.  A microstylistic sequence
  worked out for Style III based on tree-ring dates
  indicates the rules of design began to break down
  after A.D. 1100.  Style II and III were but one
  of a number of material correlates that relate to
  the organization of Mimbres society involved in
  irrigation agriculture.  When the system broke
  down after A.D. 1130, the pottery ceased to be
  made but heirloom vessels may have been used up
  to mid century.

22
Southwest (16)

• Hohokam
• The Hohokam are multi-lingual and multi-ethnic
• Ancestoral to O'odham and Yumans.
• 1400's population was 40,000 to 80,000.
• Spanish contact population was 5,000.
• Area is from Gulf of California to Flagstaff,
  core area was Gila-Salt confluence and adjacent
  valley areas.
• Traits
• Rancherias (houses in pits)
• Irrigation agriculture with large scale canals
• Red on bluff, paddle and anvil pottery
• Naturalistic figures in the designs
• Cremation
• Links to Mesoamerica as evidenced by ballcourts
  and platform mounds, social hierarchy.
• Chronology
• Origins show continuity from the Archaic or
  earlier
• Dating difficult due to lack of dendrochronology,
  before 1980 less than 120 dates, now thousands.
• Preclassic Pioneer 2300 - 1500 BP (300 BC -
  AD 500)
• Colonial -- 500 875 AD.
• Sedentary -- 875 - 1100/1150 AD.

23
Southwest (17)

• Architecture
• Pit houses had risers in early Pioneer period,
  evidencing in-house storage.
• Risers decline with advent of courtyard groups.
• Courtyard groups occupied 40 - 100 years.
• Ballcourt from Tucson area to Flagstaff, with 225
  ballcourts at 160 larger sites. Oval, elliptical
  in form with berms.
• Trade
• Regional exchange network larger than ballcourt
  area.
• Gulf of California shell homogeneous distribution
• Copper bells and exotic stone from Mexico
• Obsidian from Gila Bend area
• Forest products and stone from the north.
• Valley had a surplus of agricultural product.
• Temporal Changes
• Adobe compounds replace pit houses during
  Classic.
• Hohokam redware changes from Gila Red (to 1300)
  to Salt Red evidencing change in exchange.
• During the Classic platform mounds replace
  ballcourts and are concentrated.
• One mound replaces several ballcourts, indication
  of social reorganization.
• 1250 AD residences atop mounds.
• 1300 Salado polychromes imported and increase of
  activity in the Tonto Basin.

24
Southwest (18)

• Hierarchy
• Greatest evidence of hierarchy in the SW.
• Few Great Houses and limited number of mounds
  indicates regional organization.
• Special houses and goods found atop mounds.
• Walled compounds around mounds and Great Houses.
• More adobe compounds near mounds with courtyard
  groups ion mound periphery.
• Comparison Pre-Classic Hohokam ballcourts and
  Classic platform mounds.
• 225 ballcourts at 160 of the largest sites, 40
  in the Phoenix basin (compared to thousands of
  Hohokam sites)
• Ballcourts are oval or elliptical form
  depressions surrounded by berms.
• Ballcourts were dispersed across the Hohokam
  regional system
• Ballcourts were accessible to the entire
  community
• Platform mounds are concentrated, within 60 miles
  of Snaketown (Lower Gila River), there are fewer
  mounds than ballcourts.
• Mounds are built of solid fill with stone or
  adobe exterior retaining walls
• Mounds had rooms built on them after 1250
• Mounds had courtyards and enclosure walls. These
  may have served to limit access.
• Similarities Both ballcourts and platform mounds
  were ceremonial in nature, both were constructed
  as public works both mounds and ballcourts acted
  as unifying elements within the culture both
  probably facilitated trade. Exchange and
  interaction is similar and continued from the
  pre-classic to the classic period
• Differences Residences were built on platform
  mounds ballcourts were built throughout Hohokam
  regional system, while platform mounds were
  concentrated in Phoenix, Salt River, Gila River
  and southern Arizona. Ballcourts were accessible
  to everyone, but the mounds were occupied by only
  a few individuals. Mounds more labor intensive to
  construct
• Mounds seemed to service village clusters, while
  ballcourts were distributed in most villages.
  Ballcourts were phased out and platform mounds
  became more prevalent. Society moving toward
  greater complexity.
• Centralized powerful leadership emerged

25
Pit house

• Almost all of these pithouses consisted of a
  large living room and a smaller antechamber.
  Using stone and wooden tools, the people dug a
  rounded or oblong-shaped depression several feet
  into the ground. Usually there was a low bench
  surrounding the floor area with four timbers
  placed in holes in each corner to support a roof
  framework. Timbers were placed across the tops of
  the four posts with smaller logs, sticks, juniper
  bark, and mud to cover the framework to make it
  weatherproof.
• The larger room, used as sleeping quarters and a
  general work area, was divided into two sections
  by a low wall extending toward the firepit.
  Utensils and other implements for food
  preparation are often found behind this low wall,
  and the antechamber was probably a large storage
  area. Entrance to the pithouse was by means of a
  ladder through an opening in the roof above the
  centrally located firepit.

26
Corrugated Ware

• Chaco Canyon. Coolidge corrugated pitcher made in
  Pueblo I-II period (American Museum of Natural
  History, New York).
• 13 cm.

27
Chaco Canyon

• Map shows the core Chaco Canyon region

28
Chaco Ceramics

• Chaco black-on-white ceramic pots
• Typical geometric design elements
• Upper R Chaco A.D. 1050-1125 L Chaco-McElmo
  A.D. 1075-1125
• Lower Anasazi black-on-white pitchers

29
Chaco CanyonPueblo Bonito

• Pueblo Bonito is the largest ancient dwelling at
  Chaco Canyon, and in fact the largest known
  Anasazi dwelling.
• The South wall (running vertically along the
  right of the photograph) is nearly 175 meters
  long.
• Pueblo Bonito grew through four major
  construction phases, starting in the early tenth
  century with a semicircular row of rooms
  (coinciding roughly with the left curved outer
  portion of the building), culminating in 1120
  with over 650 rooms and an estimated resident
  population of 400-1000.

30
Chaco Canyon Pueblo Alto

• Reconstruction
• Located about 3500 feet north of Pueblo Bonito,
  Pueblo Alto is the highest village at Chaco
  Canyon, and may have been a place of
  communication into what is now Mexico via fire
  signals. There is one possible tower kiva, but
  otherwise the entire village is single storey
  construction.
• The village's 110 rooms and eleven kivas were
  constructed between 1020 AD and 1140 AD. It was
  abandoned ten years later.
• Seven prehistoric roads radiated outwards from
  Pueblo Alto. It is a place were turquoise was
  processed for ritual objects. The source of the
  turquoise used here was near present-day
  Cerillos, south of Santa Fe.

31
Mesa Verde (1)

• Cliff Palace, in Mesa Verde National Park, was
  built around 1200 A.D.  The large pueblo contains
  more than 200 small rooms plus kivas.  Some of
  the construction is four storied.

32
Mesa Verde (2)

• The three story buildings extend to the ceiling. 
  This third largest cliff dwelling on Mesa Verde
  has 114 rooms and eight kivas nestled in a 66 by
  27 meter cave.

33
Mesa Verde (3)

• Spruce Tree House
• Located in large, natural rock shelter in Mesa
  Verde region

34
Mesa Verde (3)

• Square Tower House
• Originally there were 80 rooms and seven kivas. 
  Two kivas retain portions of their roofs.

35
Mesa Verde (4)

• Sun Temple is located across the canyon from
  Cliff Palace.  It consists of a double-walled
  structure surrounding two kivas.  The kivas may
  have been towers.

36
Mesa Verde (6)

• Mesa Verde black-on-white bowls (Crow Canyon
  Archaeological Center).
• These were a common article of trade in the
  region in ca. 1180-1300.

37
Mesa Verde (7)

• Chaco Canyon. Wingate black-on-red three-lobed
  jar with mask motif (American Museum of Natural
  History, New York). 15 cm.

38
Tusayan Polychrome

• Bowl
• 26.67 cm diameter
• Tusayan B Polychrome

39
Homolovi
40
Mogollon Early Pit House architecture

• Early Mimbres architecture consisted of
  subterranean pithouses.
• The walls of these structures were made of soil,
  upon which plaster was applied.
• The pithouse was entered through the roof, then
  later by an inclined entrance from the surface.
• Later pithouses were constructed of rubble
  masonry and were semi-subterranean.

41
Mogollon Early Pit House Ceramics

• The San Francisco Red pottery type is
  characterized by a deep red slip applied to the
  interiors of bowls and the exteriors of jars.
• This pottery is highly polished and has an
  extremely smooth surface.
• The red slip is made from hematite added to a
  clay suspension in water.

42
Mogollon Late Pit House architecture

• During the Late Pithouse period two distinct
  phases of pithouse architecture can be
  determined.
• From AD 550 to 650 (Georgetown Phase) pithouses
  were round with simple hearths and no internal
  divisions. Large wooden posts supported the
  roofs. The structures were systematically cleaned
  out before they were abandoned.
• From AD 900 to 1000 (Late Three Circle Phase)
  pithouses changed from circular to rectangular in
  shape and the walls were constructed of masonry
  one meter above the ground surface. Hearths
  became more elaborate and also became rectangular
  rather than circular, and small holes constructed
  in the roof allowed smoke from the hearth to
  escape. These pithouses were burned before they
  were abandoned.
• Pueblo room blocks appeared after AD 1000 as a
  response to the increase in population and
  agricultural intensification in the Mimbres
  Valley.

43
Mogollon Late Pit House Ceramics (1)

• Black-on-white style I, or Boldface
  Black-on-white, pottery type was made from AD 750
  until AD 900. It is characterized by a thin,
  chalky, white slip applied to the interiors of
  bowls and the exteriors of jars. The paint is
  black although sometimes it is red due to
  misfiring. The painted designs extend to the rim
  and are executed in thick lines. The designs
  consist of large scrolls, wavy-line hatchure, a
  three-pronged F, and rare, crude naturalistic
  designs.
• The Black-on-white style II, or Transitional
  Black-on-white, pottery type was made from AD 900
  until AD 1020. It is characterized by a thin,
  chalky, white slip applied to the interiors of
  bowls and the exteriors of jars. Early designs
  extended to the rim but later designs stop short
  of the rim when rim bands develop. The designs
  were more complex and there were varied motifs.
  Designs included linear and curvilinear designs,
  straight-line hatchuring bounded by thick
  bordering lines, thick-line interlocking scrolls,
  and some naturalistic designs.

44
Mogollon Late Pit House Ceramics (2)

• The Black-on-white style II/III pottery type was
  made from AD 970 until AD 1020. This style
  bridges the Black-on-white styles II and III. It
  is characterized by the development of the use of
  multiple, fine framing lines, finer linework, and
  more careful execution of the designs. Geometric
  and figurative images were begun to be painted in
  negative form.

45
Mogollon Classic/Post-Classic architecture

• The Classic Mimbres period dates from AD 1000 to
  1140. Masonry-walled pueblos were built over Late
  Pithouse period pithouses. These pueblos
  consisted of living rooms, storage rooms, and
  civic-ceremonial rooms. There was a major
  increase in the population due to irrigation
  agriculture and more intensive and extensive
  exploitation of the environment.
• The Postclassic Mimbres period dates from AD 1140
  to 1450 and is divided into two phases. The Black
  Mountain Phase dates from AD 1140 to 1300. During
  this phase the population moved towards the
  south. There was no building of ceremonial
  architecture (kivas) and the pottery was either
  local utilitarian or non-local painted ware. The
  Cliff Phase dates from AD 1300 to 1450 and is
  characterized by adobe architecture

46
Mogollon Classic period ceramics

• The Black-on-white style III, or Classic Mimbres
  Black-on-white, pottery type was made from AD
  1010 until AD 1130. It is characterized by a
  thin, chalky, white slip applied to the interiors
  of bowls and the exteriors of jars. Framing line
  bands, or rim bands, were almost universal and
  often multiple bands present. Geometric and
  naturalistic designs were painted on the pottery.
  Designs included thin line hatchure bordered by
  thin lines, and wide and narrow concentric bands
• The Polychrome style III pottery type was similar
  to Black-on-white style III with the exception of
  the use of a third color, ranging from tan to
  yellow, in place of fine-line hatchure or as
  filler in a naturalistic element.

47
Hohokam Ballcourts
48
(No Transcript)
49
Hohokam Pueblo Grande Mound

• The platform mound at Pueblo Grande is one of the
  largest the Hohokam ever constructed. Like the
  northwest ballcourt, it is oriented in a general
  north-south direction and measures 49 by 90 m,
  approximately the size of a modern-day football
  field. At its greatest height, the mound stood
  7.5 to 9 m high. Surrounding the entire mound, a
  2 m high and 1 m wide (1 m) compound wall
  restricted access to all but a selected group of
  individuals.

50
Hohokam Ceramics

• The Hohokam adopted stylistic elements of
  Mesoamerican origin and their settlement patterns
  resemble those of the adjacent Mexican states
  Sonora and Sinaloa more than the Puebloan north.
  Southern influences include ceramic styles,
  figurines, censers, and palettes.
• Red-on-brown bowl

51
Map of Southwest Culture Regions

• Southwest 1
• Southwest 13
• Southwest 16

52
Map of Hohokam Occupation in Arizona
53
Southwest Sites

• 1. SU Site
• 2. McPhee Village
• 3. Tornillo rock shelter
• 4. Three Fir shelter
• 5. Milagro
• 6. Shabikeshchee
• 7. Chaco Canyon
• 8. Mesa Verde
• 9. Homol'ovi pueblos

54
(No Transcript)